here, there, everywhere

In Siem Reap, which is hot and dusty and filled with men perched on their motorcycle taxis waving 'moto, hey lady, moto! where are you going?' wherever you go. I spent both yesterday and this morning making use of my 3-day visitor's pass to the Angkor Wat temple complex, which has been a hot, dry, thirsty and staggeringly awesome experience (this is the part where I wish I could just upload a photo and let that do the describing for me so I don't fall back on words like 'awesome,' which I'm fully aware I've also used to express enthusiasm for the full gamut from morning coffee to America's Next Top Model episodes). April is the hottest month here, and while I wish I had the stamina to be wandering from temple to temple till dark, I've had to wimp out after only a few hours both time (today the heat was mitigated some by being on the back of a motorcycle for a good three hours over bumpy, unpaved red dust roads, so at least there was a breeze even if now I can't walk). Fortunately, Siem Reap itself is a well-established tourist town where it's easy to guiltily distract yourself from building character, with its hamburger stands, internet cafes, cheap foot massage parlors and, best of all - a real bookstore, where the books are all alphabetized and everything. I was so happy to find new books I almost cried, especially after finding a copy of Haruki Murakami's newest book for $5. It's literally a copy of the actual book (though it's bound and looks virtually indistinguishable), which always makes me feel slightly dirty and which seems to be a phenomenon unique to Cambodia and Vietnam - in Laos, I bought an airplane ticket from a man who looked shocked to find out that my Lonely Planet was a cheap Vietnamese copy ('they're bad').